Purdue student startup receives $100,000 from global entrepreneur development program

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Bearing Analytics, a Purdue University student startup based in Purdue Research Park, is one of 10 top startups to receive a $100,000 grant from FOUNDER.org, a global student entrepreneur investor and company building program.

FOUNDER.org works with leading colleges, universities and research institutes throughout North America and Europe to advance student entrepreneurship. Bearing Analytics commercializes hardware/software solutions for industrial machinery monitoring. Anurag Garg and Lokesh Gupta co-founded the company. Garg is CEO and Gupta is vice president of research and development.

"It is an honor for Bearing Analytics to be considered by FOUNDER.org and to receive this funding as one of the top 10 student startups," Garg said. "The FOUNDER.org program includes an amazing group of people who will become an extension of our core team. They will play an integral role in developing strategy and helping us become an even more successful company.

"The other entrepreneurs accepted into the program are very talented and very well-rounded. We look to leverage and support that network of like-minded young entrepreneurs."

Bearing Analytics also was named to the FOUNDER.org Class of 2015 along with two other startups founded by Purdue University student entrepreneurs, Medtric Biotech LLC and SensorHound Innovations LLC.

The 50 startups named to the Class of 2015 will receive weekly training and other assistance from their mentors, and the entire group will meet quarterly at partner schools either in North America or Europe.

Garg said Bearing Analytics currently is actively raising $650,000 for its first round of equity funding. He said the FOUNDER.org grant brings the company one step closer to that goal.

"Along with the $100,000 grant from FOUNDER.org, we have raised $170,000 from business plan competitions around the country, including the 2013 Department of Energy Clean Energy Challenge, the 2013 Rice Business Plan Competition, the 2013 Global Venture Labs Investment Competition and the 2013 Burton D. Morgan Business Plan Competition at Purdue University," he said. "We also are developing our first group of early customers and partners."

"It is a real testament to the talented entrepreneurs who are utilizing the startup ecosystem Purdue has in place and the quality of the innovative research coming out of the university that we have three companies to advance to the FOUNDER.org Class of 2015," said Dan Hasler, president and chief entrepreneurial officer of Purdue Research Foundation. "We fully expect the early success of Bearing Analytics, SensorHound Innovations and Medtric Biotech to continue, and that the many other companies developing their innovations at Purdue will experience similar success."

Garg said the relationship with Purdue has been essential in the company's continued progress.

"Purdue has supported Bearing Analytics every step of the way, from providing travel grants through the College of Engineering and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, to accelerating the licensing process through the Office of Technology Commercialization," he said. "Officials at the Foundry and Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship have assisted with customer development, strategy development and investor connections, too. These initiatives and organizations play an important role in helping student-launched startups to commercialize their own ideas as well as Purdue technology."

FOUNDER.org is a global nonprofit started in 2012 by serial entrepreneur and former venture capitalist Michael Baum, the founding CEO of Splunk. Its goal is to significantly increase the number of student entrepreneurs by backing the brightest student founders and biggest ideas.

About Purdue Research Park

The Purdue Research Park is the largest university-affiliated business incubation complex in the country. The Purdue Research Park manages the Purdue Technology Centers in four sites in Indiana located in West Lafayette, Indianapolis, Merrillville and New Albany. The more than 260 companies located in the park network employ about 4,500 people who earn an average annual wage of $63,000. The park is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, which received the 2014 Incubator Network of the Year by the National Business Incubator Association for its work in entrepreneurship. For more information about funding and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org